Post and Courier | The artist formerly known as FatRat da Czar: Columbia emcee sheds name, baggage on new album

As seen in the Post and Courier

By Kyle Petersen Special to Free Times

Aug 15, 2024

MASTA SPLNTA performs his new album, "Dojo," at New Brookland Tavern, Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024.

Jamar Riley, Special to Free Times

Over the course of more than two decades, local emcee FatRat da Czar built his brand and

burnished his reputation as one of South Carolina’s hip-hop leaders. FatRat's always been a dominant player in Columbia's hip-hop scene, from his early days in the Streetside group in the 2000s and his 2010s imperial era as a solo artist to his numerous efforts to expand the reach of the state’s hip-hop scene — his folk-hop duo Colorblind, his NewSC collective and creating the Love, Peace & Hip-Hop festival and nonprofit, just to name a few. 

Now, he’s retiring that name — but not leaving the game.

Now known as MASTER SPLNTA, the veteran rapper celebrated the release of his new album "DOJO" Aug. 8. The concert bill was loaded with artists in the scene SPLNTA helped build, including H3RO, MIDIMarcum, PatX and Quelle the Prophet.

'What's in a name?'

According to the musician-formerly-known-as-FatRat da Czar, his creative rebirth came from a reappraisal of his life approach.

A chance encounter at the Jam Room Studios with the co-founders of Upstream, a local holistic mental health practice, led him down a new path of that saw a mental, physical — he shed more than 100 pounds through his practice of mindfulness and walking meditation — and even spiritual transformation.

After the artist watched the Upstream team record a guided meditation, he "became very curious." 

“Lucky for me, they were willing to share. I ended up taking a class," SPLNTA said. "It didn't take right away. It wasn't quick, like ‘oh, now I know what to do.’ It was hard. I didn't realize how noisy my life was.”

The mindfulness transformation impacted him creatively — when SPLNTA got back in the studio and started writing again, he found himself formulating an identity that felt distinct from what came before, much like when he added “Da Czar” while embarking on his solo career in the mid-2000s.

“My initial transformation from FatRat to FatRat Da Czar, though challenging, was about staking my claim and then cementing my legacy, which ultimately was about controlling the outcome,” SPLNTA said in a press release. “On the way to and through my transition from FatRat Da Czar to MASTER SPLNTA, it’s been about relinquishing control and the power that comes with it in exchange for a new source of power that is generated from confidence, not control.”

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Gone Zen and the Southern Shaolin

In practice on "DOJO," that means a balance between the battle-hardened swagger typical of his prior records and a newfound sense of wisdom and serenity that befits his status. Or, as he says on the opener “Blessings:" "make me dangerous as a rottweiler/but as peaceful as a monk.”

“I really thought there was only one way to be as a Black man in Columbia, a Black man in the South, doing hip-hop,” said SPLNTA. “I was militant about it, I declared war from the jump, you know? I really wanted to draw a nice dark line down the middle and say, ‘I’m over here.’ Now I’m more comfortable erasing that line.”

Donning MASTER SPLNTA was layered with meaning. There’s the obvious nod to the rodent sensei in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," of course, but it also balanced spirituality and violence through martial arts, and connected his tribe of hip-hop artists with the Shaolin mythology of the Staten Island hip-hop greats, Wu-Tang Clan.

Although an obvious fan of that lineage and a martial arts practitioner himself, SPLNTA actually credits fellow rapper Quelle the Prophet, who guests on two cuts on "DOJO," with the direct connection to the Wu.

MASTA SPLNTA performs his new album, "Dojo," at New Brookland Tavern, Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024. Jamar Riley, Special to Free Times

“Quelle explained to me that there was a northern monastery and the southern Shaolin styles of kung-fu,” he said. “He was the one that turned me onto that, and I really wanted to represent the other monastery. It was a really nice domino effect.”

Fittingly, much of the record seems to blend OutKast-style Southern hip-hop-isms with the bar-heavy mythologies and interplay of the Wu-Tang Clan, something which many of the guest artists (and Quelle in particular) are adept at. It also naturally plays to SPLNTA’s strengths, allowing him to showcase his well-honed chops and Southern identity.

Lest we forget his commitment to engaging the youth and the next generation into the hip-hop tradition, "DOJO" includes another heartfelt ode to his son, “Sun,” near the end of the record. It’s a reminder that the artist is just as much an educator and organizer through efforts like the Love, Peace, & Hip-Hop festival, as well as his K-12-oriented “Beats to the Rhyme” youth songwriting program in public schools.

“I think this will be my final form,” he said. "I made a pretty good framework in Columbia. I open up a lot of doors. And now I see kids being able to walk in all the time, thanks to me ... And I think this is all part of (that) journey.”